Links 003: Sephora teens were born in the '40s
Jake Paul body care, Sabrina Carpenter perfume, and an Ulta glow-up
Lots of news makes for a stacked edition of Links this week. There will be no pandering about brat summer or coconut trees because I care about you.
Light coverage
Please do not get swept up in TikTok’s “cortisol face” worry. Instead, read Alex Sujong Laughlin’s essay about hormone anxiety at Defector and Zeynab Mohamed’s piece about facial classification at Face Value.
I love the New York Times’ retrospective on American teen beauty trends, which tracks the eighty-year march from 1940s’ teen Tangee girls to today’s Sol de Janiero tweens. Props for including the seminal Black beauty brand Fashion Fair.
Source: New York Times It was announced this week that Jake Paul’s body care brand W has raised $14 million in seed and series A funding. The atrociously-named line launched in Walmart last month, and is projected to hit $50 million in sales this year. (Some of the new capital will go towards retailer expansion, per THR, so I do wonder about the terms of the W-Walmart partnership.) I’m watching W closely, as Paul has previously threatened to “take over the whole bathroom — toothpaste, towels, and who knows, we might even do toilet paper one day.”
Soft skin and she perfumed it for ya: Sabrina Carpenter’s third fragrance with Scent Beauty, Cherry Baby, debuted yesterday. The “Espresso” singer is serving up a $9.99 body spray (8 fl oz.) and $29.99 eau de parfum (30ml) in the “playful” yet “sophisticated” scent. Business of Fashion’s Faran Krentzil writes that
Carpenter wants to focus on building emotional worlds for her fans… She hopes Cherry Baby becomes a permission slip for fans, many of whom are Gen-Z, to explore flirtier sides of themselves. “It’s something that we as young women can wear while growing into adult women,” she explained.
Carpenter is one of our savviest pop stars1, so I can see her running an accessibly-priced fragrance empire alongside her music career for a few more years. Scent Beauty’s collaborators include Dolly Parton and Kylie Minogue, so it already has the blueprint down.
New e.l.f. campaign just dropped, starring champion gymnast Gabby Douglas and David Puddy/Kronk.
A peer-reviewed study in Cureus this week examines the effects of varying lip filler injection techniques on migration and patient satisfaction. It’s a randomized retrospective study of 216 patients who received injections in one of four ways (see the illustration below). Three weeks post-treatment, according to the study, “patient satisfaction was found to be highest in the group with needle orientation top to bottom, taking into account migration to the upper lip.”
The study also “finds” that the direction of the needle dictates the direction of distribution of filler, which seems self-evident to me and probably any qualified injector, but sure. Also unimpressive? All of the participants were white women.
I was browsing Ulta’s new arrivals page earlier this week (as one does), and noticed that the in-house label had gotten a glow-up. Today, Glossy reports that the revamped Ultra Beauty Collection is introducing 71 new SKUs, priced between $1.99 and $25 and spanning makeup, skincare, body care, and fragrance.
The “playful brand identity,” as Ulta calls it, is of course a Gen-Z play, as are the products themselves:
The product formulations were based on trends Gen Z loves, based on social listening, [Ulta Beauty SVP of merchandising Maria] Salcedo said. Milky toners, lip oils and stains, overnight lip masks, bold eyeshadows, colorful mascaras, and multi-use contour and blush products are included in the assortment.
While I’m often jaded about launches, there is some legitimately great packaging design to be found here (see this candle and this chrome eyeshadow). The products have been made to feel good in the hand and look great on video – a powerful combo, as long as the formulas deliver.
Medium coverage
WWD has new data from Dash Hudson ranking “TikTok’s buzziest beauty indies,” as measured by average engagement and follower growth. The piece’s angle is biz-focused – i.e., the current investment and M&A activity around independent brands – but I’m interested in the disparity between the lists. Here are the two top tens:
By average engagement rate in 2024: Florence by Mills, Glossier, r.e.m. Beauty, Rhode, Rare Beauty, Summer Fridays, The Lip Bar, Patrick Ta, Makeup by Mario, Danessa Myricks
By follower growth in 2024: Rhode, Merit, Summer Fridays, Violette_FR, Patrick Ta, Tower 28, Refy Beauty, Kosas, One/Size, Westman Atelier
Brands from celebs like Millie Bobby Brown, Ariana Grande, or Selena Gomez are shoo-ins for the high-engagement list. The follower-growth list has a greater diversity of target consumers: the overlap between Violette_FR fans and Tower 28 lovers is likely minimal. But the brands in that list tend to a variety of SKUs anchored by one or two hero products (Patrick Ta and Westman Atelier’s contour and blushes, for instance) that convert casual consumers into followers.
As popular indie brands mull their financial futures, they ironically stand to lose the agility that’s contributed to their TikTok success. “A lot of [them] have more creative freedom, and require [fewer] rounds of approval for content,” says Dash Hudson’s Quinn Yung.
Speaking of financials… oof, Estée Lauder. Rachel Strugatz has an early autopsy of Tom Ford Beauty at Puck that includes some surprising insights about Estee’s Sephora brands. She writes that
According to one person familiar with Sephora’s business, sales of Tom Ford Beauty makeup products are down almost 50 percent at the chain year to date… Lauder’s brands have long struggled at Sephora, according to a source with knowledge of the retailer’s business, with the exception of The Ordinary and Too Faced. (Sources close to Sephora confirmed that Clinique makeup is exiting the retailer and that Bobbi Brown’s door count is being reduced, too.)
Not good! It’s a little sad but not altogether surprising that Clinique is getting dropped. It launched with a youth-oriented, skin-first philosophy that was revolutionary from its 1968 launch through at least the 1990s, but has been bested by newer brands in the space it helped create.
Estée’s Sephora portfolio also includes its namesake line, Dr. Jart+, Glamglow, La Mer, Origins, and Smashbox. (Sephora doesn’t stock Le Labo and MAC, two of Estée’s more powerful brands.) Rachel’s reporting is top-tier so I recommend checking out the whole piece.
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As evidenced by her choice to skip a coffee-inspired scent, imo. She’s playing the long game.